Yep, North Dakota Is Still Hooked on That Sweet Oil Money

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as you know, the real work of governmentin' gets done, and where the post office has been stolen, and the mailbox is locked.

We begin in Arkansas with some old favorites from that benighted state's benighted state legislature. First, we pay a return visit to Rep. Justin Harris, who got famous a while back for "rehoming" some foster children for Jesus, only to hand them over to a child predator. Because the actual Jesus, who is my amigo, has a wicked sense of humor, Harris and his wife run a pre-school. But not very well, as it turns out.

Police Chief Bryan Watts said the child was in the van from about 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., when police and an ambulance were called. Watts said the child, who had been strapped into a car seat, wasn't injured. He said the girl was conscious and talked to paramedics when they arrived. "We're very blessed that it was a little cooler today and the van was parked in the shade," Watts said. "If it had been much warmer, I don't think she would have survived it." State Rep. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, co-owner of the preschool, said the "bus driver" didn't notice the child was still on the van after other children got off. Harris said it was a cool, cloudy day, and the child's body temperature was 97 degrees when paramedics arrived. "So thankful to God that it was a good day," he said.

Yeah, that's the moral of the story, foof. Leave a three-year old alone in a van for five hours but thank God for making it a cloudy day. I hope this kid grows up and hit this cluck with a pie one day.

Then there's state senator Jason Raper, the unfortunately named solon with a lengthy rap sheet for being a public meathead. Recently, he engaged in some impromptu constituent outreach. According to the constituent in question, it didn't go so well.

As John Locke once said to David Hume concerning a member of Parliament, "Jesus, what a dick."

We scoot on north to the newly established petro-state of North Dakota, where the locals are discovering that tying your state's economy extensively to the oil and gas industries is like tying your diet exclusively to heroin.

North Dakota cities and counties have been slammed. Cities have struggled to provide sewer and water infrastructure "to the many thousands of people who have moved to the area," Raimi said. "For counties the biggest challenge is roads. The oil industry relies on a large fleet of heavy vehicles. And those vehicles can do substantial damage to very rural roads," Raimi said. There are other costs as well. Housing prices in the hub city of Williston, N.D., soared so high that Williams County had to buy one building and build another in order to provide county employees with affordable housing and office space. McKenzie County's emergency services responded to about five traffic accidents a month before the oil boom. By 2013 it was as many as five a day. The sheriff's office went from six officers to 22.

For some reason, I find that statistic about traffic accidents quite poignant. Five accidents a month? McKenzie County sounds like it would have been a nice place to live, once upon a time.

The stated purpose of Stockton's Blitz program, the tenants say, is to "clean up 'blight and high crime areas' by combining uniformed policing and code enforcement, and targeting specific identified targets." The plaintiffs say these targets are communities with "a significant percentage of poor, black, Latino and disabled residents." Under the guise of conducting code enforcement inspections, Stockton police demand access to homes with less than 24 hours' notice, and falsely tell them they would face criminal charges or be evicted or fined if they did not consent, according to the lawsuit. "Stockton police officers intruded at all hours, including during the dinner hour, when residents were sitting down to supper, or in the evening, when people were putting children to bed," the tenants say. They add that "pregnant women and mothers of infants were intruded upon, without regard to the impact on their health." During the searches, officers are "rude and demeaning," rifle through personal belongings, demand copies of bills and enter rooms where people are sleeping. None of the "inspections" uncovered any contraband, nor did they lead to any arrests, according to the complaint.

But Black Lives Matter is making operations like this one harder, dammit.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Special Prairie Chicken Neuter Inspector Friedman of the Plains brings us another tale of collateral damage caused by Freedom (!)

In April 2013, a malfunctioning oil well in the countryside north of Oklahoma City caused storage tanks to overflow, sending 42,000 gallons of briny wastewater hurtling over a dike, across a wheat field and into a farm pond. State regulators ordered the oil company to clean up as much of the spill as possible and repair the site. But they didn't impose fines or other punishment against Moore Petroleum Investment Corp., a tiny company in Norman that operates only a few wells….The drilling boom and state budget cuts have made enforcement and oversight even more challenging, according to the AP. For example, Oklahoma, which ranks No. 6 in total wastewater spill volume over the last five years, has 67 field inspectors to examine about 185,000 active wells and the Corporation Commission's Oil and Gas Division took a budget cut this year…

Number 6, but with a bullet, I'm guessing. Of course, there's still North Dakota.

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